Bac Ninh (VNA) – The northernprovince of Bac Ninh has been considered as a magnet for foreign directinvestment (FDI) attraction with the rising pull of investment in recent years.

After 30 years of FDI attraction(1987-2017) and 20 years of re-establishment (1997-2017), the FDI sector of BacNinh has become a dynamic economic area with positive contributions to thelocality’s socio-economic development.

In 1997, Bac Ninh had only four FDIprojects worth nearly 178 million USD. Recently, FDI in the province hasincreased sharply, reaching a record of 3.5 billion USD in 2017.

As of 2017, the province had nearly 1,140 validFDI projects with a combined registered capital of over 16 billion USD, rankingsixth out of the 63 localities in terms of investment.

Foreign firms have invested in 13 out of 21sectors in Bac Ninh, mostly in processing and manufacturing with 902 projectsworth 15 billion USD, accounting for 93.5 percent of total investment in theprovince.

The Republic of Korea is by far the leadinginvestor in the province with 725 projects valued at 11.8 billion USD,accounting for 73.3 percent of total FDI – followed by Japan with 88 projects capitalisedat nearly 1.1 billion USD.

Over the past 20 years, FDI has madesignificant contributions to the socio-economic development of Bac Ninh,helping to increase its gross regional domestic product (GRDP) of the locality.

Bac Ninh’s GRDP in 2017 was nearly 142trillion VND (6.1 billion USD), 26 times higher than that in 1997. Additionally,the influx of FDI also helped the province to transform its economic structure,and promote the growth of its industrial production, while increasing itsexports and budget collection and creating jobs for a large number of locallabourers.

According to Director of the provincialDepartment of Planning and Investment Nguyen Dinh Xuan, Bac Ninh ranks sixthout of 63 localities nationwide in terms of FDI attraction. This is an importantfoundation for the province to continue to rise in socio-economic growth,heading towards becoming a centrally-run city in 2022.

Currently, Bac Ninh is finalising aproposal to add its high-tech park into the nationwide master plan of high-techparks.

Bac Ninh has always paid great attention toluring multi-sectoral and multi-national economic groups, he said, adding that thepresence of these groups has helped to form specified industrial parks andclusters for the support industry. After several years of operation, someinvestors have decided to increase investment and expand production.

As such, Bac Ninh has earned the title of becominga ‘magnet’, luring increasing numbers of big businesses investment projects, statedXuan. –VNA